“However, despite the tremendous amount of love and admiration for Williams being expressed pretty much everywhere right now, there are still those who can’t seem to resist the opportunity to criticize, as they do these days whenever a celebrated or successful person commits suicide. You may have come across this yourself; people who refer to the suicide as “selfish”. People will utter/post phrases such as “to do that to your family is just selfish”, or “to commit suicide when you’ve got so much going for you is pure selfishness”, or variations thereof.
If you are such a person who has expressed these views or similar for whatever reason, here’s why you’re wrong, or at the very least misinformed, and could be doing more harm in the long run.”
Source: The Guardian
Reblogged this on In the Wake of Suicide….trying to understand and commented:
Since Robin Williams’ very public death, my family and I are back to square one at having to defend the death of our much loved son and brother to suicide/mental illness. I am absolutely appalled at the ignorance that is in this world….a very hateful world that is seething with vile and vitriol about the things it will not understand. It gives credibility to the phrase, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
That’s very disheartening. Hopefully the outpouring of compassion that has also followed, from some people, will drown out their voices and judgement.
I am sorry this is happening to you again. I firmly believe that depression/mental illness needs to be made more of a topic of sincere discussion rather than a joke. My Aunt Bobbie committed suicide almost 20 years ago. We will never understand what her inner struggles were but maybe if we had been more educated, she would not have left us. I commend you for your passion to get awareness out. I am sorry your son’s death is the reason. I will pray for you and your family.